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Right when you were starting to think that maybe Mad Max: Fury Road wasn’t coming out, or maybe wasn’t even real, Entertainment Weekly whips out this cover story about the near-mythical fourth Mad Max film. Consider it a “we’re still here!” with badass leather outfits and bionic arms.

Seeing as it’s been a while since there’s been Mad Max news, let’s refresh our memories on everything we know about Fury Road so far.

1.) It’s been a long time coming.

By the time that Fury Road hits theaters in May 2015, it’ll be three years out from when shooting started. (That also means it’ll go toe-to-toe with Avengers: Age of Ultron.) Really, director George Miller has been brainstorming this fourth film since 2000, but various conflicts got in the way, and the story has shifted a lot since the start of the new millennium. One rumored version had Mel Gibson returning, opposite Heath Ledger; another take could’ve gone the animation route. But instead, we get Theron and Tom Hardy (who began shooting right around the release of The Dark Knight Rises).

2.) Unfamiliar faces, same mad world.

Tom Hardy takes over for Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, a Main Force Patrol officer struggling with the loss of his wife and daughter in post-apocalyptic Australia. Theron’s character is entirely new: Imperator Furiosa, a commander who you don’t mess with based on name alone. Oh, and this photo:

X-Men: Days of Future Past’s Nicholas Hoult and Zoë Kravitz also join up as characters named Nux and Toast, respectively.

3.) It’s not a prequel to the entire franchise.

Despite everyone calling it a reboot, Fury Road actually fits in somewhere between Mad Max and The Road Warrior.

4.) They go easy on the special effects.

In the interest of telling a linear story—“a chase that starts as the movie begins and continues for 110 minutes”—Miller opted for fewer digital effects. Considering our current glut of over-the-top action movies, that’s refreshing to hear.

5.) Could we have mutated villains?

In 2012, io9 found some interesting photos of rather gruesome-looking killing machines associated with Fury Road. Spoilerphobes may want to avoid clicking the link, but there’s some interesting character designs there.

6.) No Mel Gibson cameo.

“It would have been nice somehow,” Miller said of the original Max popping in as a minor character for a sly nod, “but no, it’s not true.” However, even if we can’t have Gibson, it sounds like we could glimpse one of Max’s Interceptors: “Without giving too much away, there is one that appears.”